The Merseyside club endured a disappointing start to the season after the departure of their former talisman, but Brendan Rodgers has turned things around recently with a change of formation and the return of Daniel Sturridge from injury. Most recently they beat top-four rivals Southampton 2-0 at St. Mary’s.

Allen said: “At the start of the year we talked about how losing Suarez was going to have an effect — now we have overcome that. It took us a little bit of time because the injury problems we had were not ideal.”

The Welshman continued: “But we are certainly back up to that level. And, if anything, with the different system we play now we might even have taken a step forward. We knew there might be a difficult patch early in the season and that went on longer than we hoped and expected. There were no hiding places and we were not delivering as players. There was no excuse from us. But we always knew we would come through it.”

However, the claim that the Reds have now become a better team than they were with the controversial forward is probably a bit hasty. Liverpool are not quite at the levels of their title push yet, and have not fully replaced the player who scored 31 goals in the last campaign. A true test of how far they have come will come on Sunday, when they play Manchester City.